Lufty Pilot Rants to Passengers About BAA Inefficiency

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  • Anonymous
    Guest

    VintageKrug
    Participant

    Interesting recording.

    Well done to the pilot for laying the blame firmly where it most deserved:

    http://www.burland.de/Music/2009/Week49/LH4729-05Dec%20LHRFRA.mp3


    JordanD
    Participant

    Is it acceptable to crack a joke about the Germans failing to lay their towels on the security machines …?


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    Probably not 😉

    Let’s hope, with the new London City Airport owners beginning to exercise their customer service focus at Gatwick with improved security screener training from January, that BAA will start to respond at Heathrow with similar initiatives.

    I am not hopeful of this, however.


    Expat_Consultant
    Participant

    I find this PA quite unacceptable.

    I trust from now on that BAA will make announcements pointing out each Lufthansa delay and encouraging the pax to apply for EU compensation.

    Those in glass houses ….


    OzTraveller
    Participant

    Bravo, Captain whoever. It’s about time the reason for delayed flights is made clear to passengers. Lufthansa has a reputation to uphold, especially punctuality, and if BAA is to blame, then passengers should be told. The inefficiencies of BAA are well know to airlines and now passengers know as well.


    Age_of_Reason
    Participant

    Not a trace of doubt that the Lhnsa pilot is entitled to his opinion.. It’s exactly the situation for which this open-issue forum is intended.

    I note some interesting links developing…. acc to VK Troll, London City has new owners who may be introducing innovations which will prick BAA into action at LGW and maybe LHR? Was there not a suggestion once that BAA should be obliged to divest one of EDI or GLA with the intent of this very effect? But BAA has resisted, wishing to preserve its scottish stranglehold monopoly. Time to resurrect that divestment?


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    I don’t normally comment on such things, but I will say this once. Please desist from the name calling, Age_of_Reason. We just don’t need it here.

    Current status is that the Competition Commission is Appealing against the decision of the last Court Case:

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23809994-competition-commission-blocked-in-forcing-baa-sale.do


    Age_of_Reason
    Participant

    Well well VK, more detail and less illumination. Your point is?

    Let me offer that it apppears that the Monopolies Commission recommendation, which had general popular customer support, is being kicked into the long grass of legal and accounting detail and obfuscation. Evidence such as offered in the headline article which sparked this thread, that BAA IS inefficient and not serving its customers, is not being considered. Intervention is required.


    VintageKrug
    Participant

    The market will decide; that is the best mechanism.

    Where a market has been distorted (as was the case with the monopoly in Scotland) the it is right that Government should intervene to make a more level playing field. However, as GLA was only ever seriously on the table for sale, it is the less attractive of the two options to any future purchaser.

    The major purchaser is likely to be either Peel Holdings or Macquarie Group, and while this does create diversity in the UK aviation industry, selling GLA would not develop a truly independent, customer oriented airport company.

    BA never made a profit from shorthaul feeder flights, which is why it disposed of BA Connect and was forced to retain a 15% shareholding in flybe.

    Age_of_Reason you have suggested somewhat aggressively elsewhere that I am in someway a “professional” connected with BA, and I re-iterate for your personal benefit that I have no professional or personal connection with the travel industry whatsoever, aside from being a frequent flyer and shareholder.

    I don’t “have the ear of Willie Walsh” but I do get to speak to him and other senior BA people from time to time and when I do I make my points clearly – both positive and negative.

    Golly – I suppose I should feel flattered that you are focussing on me so very much – would you like an autograph?


    Age_of_Reason
    Participant

    Oh dear, a few old long-debunked responses.
    “The Markets will decide” – like they did with the deregulated banks?

    The govt should intervene – agree entirely – and the markets will decide the price – and the value of the divestment to the customers by the injection of fresh attitude and other requisites should not be expected to balance. Any short-term disadvntage must be swallowed fror the longterm good.

    And BA has never made a profit on shorthaul – so why has BA consistently bought up shorthaul competition?. I suspect the benefit allocation of longhaul revenue which flows from feeders is underaccounted. Or conveniently not mentioned when another agenda is being pursued.


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    Priceless recording, worthy of any Dennis Norden “Bloopers”. Luckily for the pilot he was in the UK – imagine if he had made these comments within the jurisdiction of the American TSA. Probably shipped off to G Bay, never to be seen again. Well done Capt.


    Age_of_Reason
    Participant

    VK are you the same VK who has the ear of, and can bring a smile to the face of, WW himself “when you talked to him last June”?

    It doesn’t really matter – all I hope is that these messages are pushing the right buttons somewhere, even if it is at the expense of touched nerves elsewhere.


    MartynSinclair
    Participant

    Old Age – you do make me laugh……………..you sound like you are so confused………………take 2 aspirins and you should feel better in the morning…!

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